For
decades, the seven reels from 1913 lay unexamined in the film archives
of the Museum of Modern Art. Now, after years of research, a historic
find has emerged: what MoMA
curators say is the earliest surviving footage for a feature film with a
black cast. It is a rare visual depiction of middle-class black
characters from an era when lynchings and stereotyped black images were
commonplace. What’s more, the material features Bert Williams, the first
black superstar on Broadway. Williams appears in blackface in the
untitled silent film along with a roster of actors from the sparsely
documented community of black performers in Harlem on the cusp of the
Harlem Renaissance. Remarkably, the reels also capture behind-the-scenes
interactions between these performers and the directors.

MoMA
plans an exhibition around the work called “100 Years in
Post-Production: Resurrecting a Lost Landmark of Black Film History,”
which is to open on Oct. 24 and showcase excerpts and still frames.
Sixty minutes of restored footage will be shown on Nov. 8 in the
museum’s annual To Save and Project festival dedicated to film
preservation.